Bingyao Yu

The emergence of visual autoregressive (AR) models has revolutionized image generation while presenting new challenges for synthetic image detection. Unlike previous GAN or diffusion-based methods, AR models generate images through discrete token prediction, exhibiting both marked improvements in image synthesis quality and unique characteristics in their vector-quantized representations. In this paper, we propose to leverage Discrete Distribution Discrepancy-aware Quantization Error (D$^3$QE) for autoregressive-generated image detection that exploits the distinctive patterns and the frequency distribution bias of the codebook existing in real and fake images. We introduce a discrete distribution discrepancy-aware transformer that integrates dynamic codebook frequency statistics into its attention mechanism, fusing semantic features and quantization error latent. To evaluate our method, we construct a comprehensive dataset termed ARForensics covering 7 mainstream visual AR models. Experiments demonstrate superior detection accuracy and strong generalization of D$^3$QE across different AR models, with robustness to real-world perturbations. Code is available at \href{https://github.com/Zhangyr2022/D3QE}{https://github.com/Zhangyr2022/D3QE}.

The accessibility surge and abuse risks of user-friendly image editing models have created an urgent need for generalizable, up-to-date methods for Image Manipulation Detection and Localization (IMDL). Current IMDL research typically uses cross-dataset evaluation, where models trained on one benchmark are tested on others. However, this simplified evaluation approach conceals the fragility of existing methods when handling diverse AI-generated content, leading to misleading impressions of progress. This paper challenges this illusion by proposing NeXT-IMDL, a large-scale diagnostic benchmark designed not just to collect data, but to probe the generalization boundaries of current detectors systematically. Specifically, NeXT-IMDL categorizes AIGC-based manipulations along four fundamental axes: editing models, manipulation types, content semantics, and forgery granularity. Built upon this, NeXT-IMDL implements five rigorous cross-dimension evaluation protocols. Our extensive experiments on 11 representative models reveal a critical insight: while these models perform well in their original settings, they exhibit systemic failures and significant performance degradation when evaluated under our designed protocols that simulate real-world, various generalization scenarios. By providing this diagnostic toolkit and the new findings, we aim to advance the development towards building truly robust, next-generation IMDL models.